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The boy gave antianxiety drugs to three girls at Powell Middle School, investigators said.
By JAMIE JONES, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 26, 2002
SPRING HILL -- A 14-year-old Powell Middle School student has been charged with delivery of a controlled substance because he passed out pills to several students at the campus on Nov. 1, authorities said.
Hernando County Sheriff's Office investigators said the 14-year-old took his grandmother's antianxiety pills, Lorazepam, and gave them to three teenage girls. The girls were taken by ambulance to Spring Hill Regional Hospital, where doctors treated and then released them.
The Sheriff's Office said the boy was one of three students who tested positive for the narcotic benzodiazepine. Another student tested negative for the drug.
Detective Kathleen Reid conducted a taped interview with the boy Thursday. During the interview, records show, he admitted that he took the small white pills from his grandmother's prescription bottle. He put them in a small plastic bag and passed them out at school to the three girls, ages 13 and 14, authorities said. All are eighth-graders, authorities said.
He was charged with a third-degree felony, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
The Times is withholding the 14-year-old's name because he is a minor.